Six months after Sable Offshore Oil relaunched oil production at its Las Flores Canyon Plant in Santa Barbara County — after a 10-year shutdown resulting from a major oil spill caused by pipeline corrosion in 2015 — company attorneys notified county officials that they need county clearance to dig up 12 lengths of pipeline to determine whether they’re as corroded as a federally mandated tests indicated they were. Should the 12 “anomalies” — as these corrosion hot spots are known — eat into the wall of the steel pipeline by 40 percent or more, the company would be required to repair that portion of pipe.
Although the county counsel’s office has not yet decided whether to issue the Houston-based oil company such a clearance — or even what the county’s jurisdictional authority is — Sable work crews have been out digging up pipeline since September 8.
Seven of the anomalies are located along the coast — more typically the jurisdiction of the California Coastal Commission — and four stretches located inland close to Sable’s Las Flores plant. (Two of the anomalies are located at one site.)…